What Compaq Presario do you have? I have one myself. You should have a recovery link in Programs. (Start, Programs).

Original Poster20th Oct 2008

its a 2500 doesnt even get to start screen just shuts its self off - has done it a few times before and Ive had to use recovery disks to get it back on, just wont do it this time.

20th Oct 2008

OK. Mine is a different model, so my discs wont work. You could try going to ]hp.com to see if there is an answer.

20th Oct 2008

try putting the disk in another machine and copying contents to hdd, this may highlight an error on the disk(scratch?) it's self in which case you will need to get another copy. sometimes diff drives can manage to read the disk so you may be able to burn another copy and use that.Could be cd rom is on its way out

Original Poster20th Oct 2008

No wont do it, think it must be disk, they are no longer available either - just great!

20th Oct 2008

it's no biggy you will just need to download all the drivers off compaqs web site and do a manual install using a copy of OS, license number will be on a sticker on bottom of lappy so just takes a bit longer